First Competition Dance Mom? Here’s Some Advice…Bad Advice

***Disclaimer~Advice here should never be followed! Not on your child, someone else’s child, or even your dogs underbelly.****

A personal goal of mine is to one day bring one of my kids to any full hair/makeup dress rehearsal just once and NOT be told, “Um..close. But she’s going to need like ten times more than what you’ve presented us with today, asshat.”–I added the last word since I can only assume its inferred.

Advice #1-When your see the words “heavy street makeup” in your cast paperwork, they’re looking for prostitot. Heres a description of what prostitot looks like to normal moms.

Remember when you were in college and you would “pre-drink” in the dorms while getting ready to go out to save money but it then results in a drunk version of you attempting the smokey but instead getting the smokey eyes/eyebrows/nose parts next to eyes, plus a hooker red lipstick mustache?

And then you’d wake up the next day in some rando’s place, so you run to the bathroom to collect your thoughts, either crap your brains out and/or vomit, and prepare for the walk of shame? That hideous creature staring back at you in thedirty mirror, is the look you’re going for on your beautiful baby.

So put down the fancy fine tipped, felt applicator eyeliner and grab your old worn out, 6 year old, unsharpened eye liner pencil and heat that bad boy up with a lighter. Now, hold the pencil on your child’s eyelid and instead of carefully drawing across, just have your child shake their head ‘no’ four or five times per eye.

It should look like this:

Yes. That’s right. Trust me.

Advice #2-50 shades of hooker red lipstick. Start you collection now. You’ll find these popular shades in the clearance bin of your local Walgreens. You’ll likely have to arm wrestle a crack whore for the last tube, so start working out now. Look for “less expensive” brands like Wet n Wild.

Dont use a lip liner. Allow the lipstick to bleed onto the skin surrounding the lips. Now, if your child is under the age of ten, don’t forget to send the tube with her backstage, to let her reapply as she sees fit (which, coincidently, is nonstop). It should look something like this by time she takes the stage:

Advice #3-And because we all know how awesome bright red lipstick looks next to non-bright white teeth, make sure they brush their teeth for ten full minutes the morning of the performance.

If you don’t have ten minutes to devote to removing the enamel from their teeth, just use whitener. Now, when I tell you to use whitener, I mean never do that to your kids. It seriously like dissolves baby teeth and even I am too moral to do that to my kids.

Advice #4-All jewelry needs to be so large, it can be seen from space….or twice the size of the child’s head. Apparently the idea is to distract the judges with their earrings so they won’t notice their sickled feet (watched all seasons of Dance Moms and I still have no idea what that means). Basically you want people to ask themselves, “did this kid just rob a Cartier’s?” And hopefully the answer is “NO”….but dance is expensive so you do you.

You’re going to need the equivalent of 35 carets in one solid ‘stone’ (read as ‘plastic’). Many times, all the girls will have to buy their earrings from the same place so that one girls plastic is not bigger than another girls plastic.

They should look something like this:

(Oh hey, my kid just put one of my slippers in the toilet….so that’s fun)

Advice #5-Hair. This is, by far, the worst part of dance. If the prospect of being told to do one of these hairstyles on your child doesn’t make you want to vomit….:

……..Well then, I hate you. I don’t know what it is about competitions that makes these hairstyles acceptable. It’s takes me an hour to make a bun WITH a bun maker! You’ve seen her hair in class, does it look like I can create snakes coming out of her head!? Not unless I can superglue you snakes to head and at this point, I’d do it.

So I’ve developed a protocol to deal with this sadistic practice. Show up to call 20 mins late, hair not done. Sounds bat shit crazy, huh? Well it is. But once the director lays eyes on your unready’d kiddo, she’s going to pass stool in her britches and then do it herself.

Now, this will only work once before she likely kicks your kid off company. But consider that possibly for a moment….wouldn’t all that free time and extra money be ni…..Shake it off Her et al.!

Advice #6-if your competition is out of town, make sure you stay in the same hotel as the dance director. Then have your child swim all night until the pool closes the night before their competition.

If you’re lucky enough to have a mini, they are usually the first to go on….at like 8am (with a call of 7). Yes, the dancers with the shortest attention span and poorest discipline are expected to be ready to go first. Which is where the swimming comes in. Your kids going to be pissed at being up so early. Expect tantrums.

If this works properly, your director will yell at your child and tell you to take them back to the room for nap, (i.e. you get a nap). Because with most dance companies, your dancer has to support every other dancer. All. Day. Long. Like 7am call to 8pm awards.

Why the frack would anyone sign up for this crap? Their first class at age 2 was so cute! Wasn’t it? Their little leo’s and ballet slippers and funky leg warmers…so stinking cute you want rip your eyeballs out!

Be warned, this may be the fate of your tiny dancer. It’s a cruel world, pals!